How and When We Became Factionalized

In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled that praying in school was unconstitutional, setting the stage that began the assault on America’s religious freedom. Interestingly, children saying prayers in school does not and cannot qualify as Congress making a law to establish religion.

But it certainly could be interpreted as prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Yet, that somehow was not the determination made by the Earl Warren-led Supreme Court.

How the SCOTUS drew this conclusion is still beyond my understanding. Did none of them read The Federalist #10, in which James Madison writes, “By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

No wonder we are so divided — we are each part of a faction that developed from this 1962 ruling. But is it really unconstitutional or simply an ‘impulse of passion,’ as Madison describes?